A Winter´s tale, or The Soul of Sweden

[Lindorm]

There's a Swedish composer, musician and generally multi-talented artist called Ted Ström. While he himself is perhaps not that well known, he has written several very famous and popular songs, as well as the scores for a lot of films and theatrical productions.

One of his most famous songs is "Vintersaga" -"A tale of winter", a sad and melancholic story about a winter night in Sweden. The lyrics reference real locations and occasions in contemporary Sweden, all sharing similar themes of lonliness, sadness and grey melancholy, with the repetitiveness of the lyrics underscoring the fact that sadness and lonliness is the same all over the country. In a way, it does capture something of the darker side of the soul of Sweden, of the experience of being Swedish. The long, lonley nights, the empty countryside, the dark night in the birch wood and the long tradition of working hard, knowing your place and getting mind-blastingly drunk as an escape route.

A sample translation of the lyrics, the last verse:

Tradarfik i Docksta i motorvägens skugga 
En överdos på Skärholmens station 
Insnöade vägar nånstans på Österlen 
Och fyllan växer till på Mommas krog 
Frusen törst i kön till stadspuben i Luleå
Frusna drömmar uti monarkin
Kärleken får leva mellan nattskiftet och drömmen
Kärleken går på billigt vin

Det är då som det stora vemodet rullar in
Och från havet blåser en isande, gråkall vind.

A truck-stop in the shadow of the motorway outside Docksta
An overdose at Skärholmen tube station
Snow-covered roads somewhere in Österlen
And at Mommas bar, the drunkeness is growing
Frozen thirst in the queue to the pub in Luleå
Frozen dreams in this monarchy
Love lives between the nightshift and the dream
Love is fuelled by cheap wine

That's when the great sadness comes rolling in
And from the sea, there blows an icy, grey-cold wind

There is really a somewhat-famous truck stop outside Docksta, a small town in the middle of nowhere along the northern Swedish coast. Mommas bar really exists in Kiruna, and is named after the brothers Jakob and Abraham Momma who lost everything they owned in the early mining boom in the Kiruna area. The bar has been famous and notorious as a rather desperate place in a boom town, the place where you went to either get laid or get beaten up. That the bar has now been gentrified and spruced up is something of another layer of irony.

Here's a version with the composer himself singing, accompanied by his own aquarel paintings that I find convey a lot of the mood in the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1oN97OMyW4


Here's a classic version with Swedish chanteuse Monica Törnell singing, considered by many to be the definitive singer of this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CWg-uSKyIw

And, as an odd one out, here's a video of Swedish metal/punk band Mimikry doing a surprisingly good cover version. It probably does help that the band members are from the Swedish ruslt belt, some of them actually coming from places mentioned in the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZcYk0lEcYU

[Opsa]

This is so cool. I love hearing about cultural gems from you and our various Siblings in other lands.

[Pachyderm]

Ooh, me likee. There would appear to be  similarities in outlook with the North-East of Scotland, which I suppose makes a certain amount of sense. We too appreciate the bleakness and grim uncertainty of life, alleviated by bursts of colour and joy. If you get a chance, there is an excellent little "self-help" book, The Wee Book Of Calvin: Air-Kissing in the North East, which explains it better than I will ever be able to do.


It appeals to my dour Highland soul.

Cheers (lifts glass)

[Darlica]

This song awakens in my mind every late November when the winter is closings it's grip around us.

I've seen many of the places mentioned in the song, some I haven't seen but I've been to places just like them and in my mind they melt together to music video of my own.